The invention pertains to methods of storing and retrieving ommunications. In a particular aspect, the invention pertains to methods of retrieving information from the Internet. In another particular aspect, the invention pertains to methods of storing and retrieving documents having different levels of document security provided for different portions of the documents.
A continuing challenge to modern society is to improve methods and apparatuses for communication transfer. For purposes of interpreting this document and the claims that follow, the term xe2x80x9ccommunicationxe2x80x9d is defined to encompass information which is passed from one human to another. Such information can be in the form of textual and/or graphic representations.
Several mechanisms are presently available for passing textual and/or graphical information from one human to another. Such mechanisms include large-scale distribution mechanisms, such as, for example, publication of books, newspapers and periodicals. Communications can also be formed and transferred by office equipment, such as with fax machines and copiers. Fax machines and copiers reproduce a hard copy of a communication, and, in the case of the fax machine, transmit an electronic version of the hard copy to a distant location prior to reproduction of the hard copy. Other mechanisms for distributing communications include electronic mail (E-mail) and network communications. A network which is achieving increasing popularity is the global Internet, which is a network extending across countries in both hemispheres of the globe. The World Wide Web (the Web) is a portion of the global Internet having hypertext-enabled pieces of information. The information on the web is communicated in many formats, including multimedia formats (such as video and audio information), as well as textual and graphical formats. Information on the web is provided with an address, such as, for example, a uniform resource locator (URL), which can be utilized to locate the information on the web.
A difficulty with the above-described mechanisms for passing communications between persons is that such mechanisms generally pass an entirety of a communication from one person to another. It can be desirable to pass only a portion of a communication from one person to another in particular instances. For instance, a communication can comprise some portions which are relatively secure (i.e., portions which are to have only limited distribution), and portions which are relatively less secure (i.e., portions which have a wider distribution than the xe2x80x9csecurexe2x80x9d portions). In such circumstances, it would be desirable to develop methodologies which could selectively pass only the less secure portions of a document.
Another difficulty with presently established methods for passing communications pertains to the present systems for accessing information on the Internet. It is becoming increasingly prevalent for persons to advertise Internet locations with so-called xe2x80x9cout-of-bandxe2x80x9d transmissions. The xe2x80x9cout-of-bandxe2x80x9d transmissions are defined as transmissions which are not electronically linked with the Internet. For instance, a URL address printed on a substrate, such as, for example, a magazine or newspaper, is an xe2x80x9cout-of-bandxe2x80x9d transmission. Also, a URL address broadcast by radio or television is also an out-of-band transmission. Present methods for accessing the Internet require a user to observe an out-of-band transmission, and subsequently input the out-of-band transmission to a processor by manually inputting the URL address, typically, one letter at a time. It would be desirable to develop new and more automated methods of inputting URL addresses from out-of-band transmissions to retrieve information from the Internet.
In one aspect, the invention encompasses a method of storing and retrieving a communication. A communication is stored in a database, and comprises a plurality of sub-components. The communication is stored utilizing software configured to save a plurality of machine-readable identifier codes associated with the communication in the database. The identifier codes identify different sub-components of the communication. Some of the sub-components of the communication are printed together with at least some of the identifier codes as a document. The document does not include all of the sub-components of the communication. The identifier codes are read from the document with a machine configured to extract the identifier codes from the machine-readable format. The identifier codes extracted by the machine are provided to a processor in data communication with the database. The processor is configured to identify all sub-components of the communication. The processor retrieves at least one sub-component from the database that was not printed on the document, and sends the at least one sub-component to an output device.
In another aspect, the invention encompasses a method of retrieving information from the Internet. A data set is provided, and the data set has an address on the Internet. The address is displayed on a substrate. The substrate is provided to a machine configured to digitize the address, link to the address on the Internet, and download at least a portion of the data set from the Internet.
In yet another aspect, the invention encompasses a method of storing and retrieving a document. In such aspect, different levels of document security are provided for different portions of the document. A data set is created which corresponds to the document. The data set is stored in a database together with a plurality of machine-readable identifier codes associated with the data set. The identifier codes identify the different portions of the document. The database is accessible to a plurality of users. Some portions of the document are defined as secure portions and other portions are defined as non-secure portions. Some users have authorization to access non-secure portions of the document, but do not have authorization to access secure portions of the document. The users are assigned access codes which identify if the users have clearance to access secure portions of the document. The non-secure portions of the document are printed on a substrate, together with at least some of the identifier codes. The identifier codes are provided to a processor in data communication with the database. The processor is configured to retrieve both the secure and the non-secure portions of the document and to send the retrieved portions of the document to an output device. The processor is further configured to recognize if an access code provides clearance to secure portions of the document. A user is required to input its individual access code to the processor before secure portions of the document are sent to the output device. The processor sends secure portions of the document to the output device only if an inputted individual user code indicates that the user has clearance to obtain the secure portions.